1. Field
The disclosure relates to a method, system, and article of manufacture for the resolution of group membership for resources.
2. Background
Certain computing environments may include a plurality of resources, such as, printers, scanners, plotters, disk storage units, tape backup units, etc. Administrators and users of such computing environments may prefer to group the plurality of resources into a plurality of groups. The plurality of groups may be used to manage the plurality of resources. For example, certain laser printers may be included in a single group and administrators and users may interact with the group to manage and use the laser printers.
The grouping of resources into groups may allow administrators and users to interact with the resources more easily in comparison to interacting with individual resources. For example, administrators and users may prefer to deal with 10 groups of resources rather than 100 individual resources. Interaction with groups may include executing functions, such as print operations, store operations, etc., on resources included in the groups.
If heterogeneous resources are grouped together and functions executed against the group, errors may occur because functions may be executed against resources that were never intended to be associated with the functions. For example, if a printer and a scanner are included in the same group then an error may occur when a print operation is performed on the group and the print operation is executed on the scanner.
Additionally, in some computing environments nested groups, i.e., groups that include other groups, may be allowed for resources. The creation of nested groups may have the potential to create circular references. For example, if group A includes group B, and an administrator includes group A again in group B, then a circular reference is created.
Certain solutions may impose limitations on how groups are formed from resources. For example, a group may be restricted to include homogenous objects. Another restriction may limit the levels of group nesting that are allowed. Yet another restriction may limit the number of times a single resource can be assigned to a group.